My father often told me in my abbreviated athletic career that mistakes were inevitable. Even the best athletes make mistakes, but it’s the type of mistake that matters. Physical mistakes are truly unavoidable, but mental mistakes are the real killers as they more likely indicate a lack of preparation or concentration. Tonight, the D-Backs featured plenty of both as they rumbled and bumbled their way to another series loss. Ironically, the first two innings were actually somewhat positive. The offense quickly struck in the first inning as Ildemaro Vargas worked a one-out walk, stole second base, and then scored on a Gabriel Moreno double for an early one-run lead. And on the other side, Jose Cabrera, in his fourth career start faced just one over the minimum through the first two innings. But that’s where the positive vibes ended. The Padres would score in five out of the next six innings while the D-Backs showed little fight outside of the last couple innings.
I’ve been very impressed by a lot in Cabrera’s first few big league starts. Torey Lovullo often gushes about his “mound presence” during games and he’s been remarkably good at finding ways to navigate traffic on the base paths through his first three starts at the big league level. But tonight was the first time that it looked like the moment was a little too big for him in my opinion and the game sped up for him. The first two runs he allowed were both walks that advanced into scoring position and then scored on clutch hits in the third and fourth, but the fifth was when the game really got away from him. After a quick first out, he uncorked a sweeper right into the “backside” of Fernando Tatis Jr, allowed him to steal second, and then misplayed a weak comebacker from Jackson Merrill. He was able to field the ball cleanly and looked Tatis back to second, but then inexplicably threw to the covering Vargas at second who immediately tried to salvage an out at first, but the throw was too late. Instead of two outs and a runner on second, Cabrera faced two runners on and just one out. Then, to make matters worse, he attempted a pickoff move towards Tatis, but was instead called for a balk to move both runners into scoring position for Xander Bogaerts who promptly plated them both and chased Cabrera out of the game. I won’t try to pretend to understand why Cabrera was called for a balk. I’ve watched a lot of baseball in my life and I’ve never fully understood the balk rule. I get that it’s designed to prevent the pitcher from deceiving the runner, but it is one of the few holdovers from an earlier era that confuses nearly everyone – including Lovullo who was tossed from the game when he asked for an explanation on the call.
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The bullpen unfortunately had no answer to a subpar San Diego offense. Taylor Clarke was the second man to pass the bullpen gate, but he looked overmatched as the Padres ambushed him for four runs – including three straight run-scoring singles from Sung-Mun Song, Tatis, and Jackson Merrill. It got particularly ugly when Clarke tried to pickoff Song at first, but instead spiked the throw and Pavin Smith couldn’t corral it, allowing Song to advance to second. Max Kepler then couldn’t cleanly collect Tatis’ ball down the line that bounced back towards him, which allowed Tatis to move up another 90 feet for Merrill. It felt more like a carousel than actual base paths.
It’s certainly possible that the D-Backs manage to split the series tomorrow. Griffing Canning, the Padres’ starting pitcher tomorrow has scuffled his way to a 6.71 ERA and the team should have no shortage of motivation, but my confidence in the team has certainly been shaken over the past month-plus of games. They routinely find ways to lose winnable games and the pitching staff is far too inconsistent for a contender. There’s still plenty of baseball to play, but they’ll need to change the vibe around this team quickly to find some momentum before the Trade Deadline.
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